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Posted by Matt Wilson [96.226.41.46] on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 13:22:47 :
In Reply to: Re: Why all the fine threaded bolts? posted by Will (in IL) [98.215.26.138] on Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 08:09:50 :
Oh, yes, I agree with you on many of these points, Will.
Many products on the market today are engineered and manufactured to "just get by" and many of them don't even do that. Household appliances are great examples. Fridges, washers, dryers, etc., used to last for decades. Now they are reaching the ends of their lives in one decade or less. Pathetic.
I think modern automobiles only fit partly into this category, though, because they actually do last much longer than their predecessors before needing major attention. It's commonplace for them to last 200,000 or even 300,000 miles without any really major work. In the '40's and 50's, most cars were pretty worn out long before reaching 100,000 miles, and they demanded a lot more attention along the way just to get to that point. The upside is that it was much easier to work on them, so if the owner desired, it was not quite as big a deal to keep them on the road indefinitely.
But in some ways, modern vehicles may fit in the "throwaway" category because once they reach the end of their long lives, it becomes very expensive and troublesome to keep them going. Engines and transmissions can be rebuilt, but then you can be inundated with problems from the numerous electronic components. Even so, it seems that many people are installing rebuilt engines into their modern cars once the original engines are worn out. There are a lot of engine remanufacturing companies that are alive and well.
A "modern" Power Wagon would reflect the above, having a really long initial life out of the factory, but eventually succumbing to nickel-and-dime problems and exhorbitant costs for major component rebuilds to keep them running. Fifty years from now, assuming gasoline is affordable and available, and safety or other regulations haven't made today's vehicles unusable, will people be pulling a 2010 Dodge out of the junk yard to get it up and running again? Maybe a few, but most probably would not. Just too much modern "stuff" to be replaced to make it worthwhile. However, given the same circumstances, and assuming parts can be found, I could see that people would still keep an old '49 Power Wagon on the road 50 years from now, simply because it's not nearly as difficult to perform the work to do so.